Herculaneum
III.19. Main entrance to atrium of Casa dell’Albergo, linked to III.1, 2 and
18.

Excavated
between 1928-29.

Wallace-Hadrill
wrote that this main entrance would have led into the atrium, a bath suite,
numerous rooms (approximately 30 but neither extent nor number of the rooms can
be clear because the area of the house over the sea-wall is ruinous) and 2 full
four-sided peristyle gardens.

See
Wallace-Hadrill, A., 1994. Houses and Society in
Pompeii and Herculaneum. New Jersey: Princeton U.P. (p.197).

According
to Maiuri, this was the most spacious, and may have been the richest dwelling
in the whole southern area of the city. It occupied three-fifths at least of
the entire area of Insula III. In the preceding excavations, the whole of the
area overlooking Cardo III was brought to light, and probably because of its
sheer size, it led to the false presumption that this house was a hotel. Unfortunately though, of all the excavations to date, this is
in the worst condition because of the eruption which at this point would have
seemed to have overthrown and uprooted the walls, by the tunnels of the Bourbon
excavators, and by the fact that this dwelling was in the midst of major
alterations at the time of the eruption.

See
Maiuri, Amedeo, (1977). Herculaneum. 7th English
ed, of Guide books to the Museums Galleries and Monuments of Italy,
No.53 (p.25-27).

According
to Pesando and Guidobaldi, a deep study of the history and decoration of this
building would only be able to be carried out after a complete conservation
intervention, when it will be entirely accessible and documentable.